An Australian teenager has died after he fell from a multi-storey car park while typing a text message.
19-year-old Ryan Robbins escorted a couple of women to their car late last Friday, in Melbourne. After they parted ways, Ryan began texting a friend, while walking.
He did not notice the railing - about waist-high - and …

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How on earth do you "trip" over a 1 metre barrier?

I'm sorry that the incident happened, but it's bollocks that he 'didn't notice the railing'. A waist-high railing is impossible to ignore. He either lunged for the phone as he lost his grip on it and went over the edge, or the railing was not waist-high or collapsed. Bad reporting.

I don't think so...

Did it say what height his is?

The centre of gravity of a human is neutrally the navel. In guys it's slightly higher than ladies (more shoulder, less hip). If he was texting, he would have raised his arms. Each of these things raises his centre of gravity.

He may also have been wearing a backpack. If it had a laptop in it, that's a lot of added mass to raise the centre of gravity.

The grandmother says the rail was waist-high, so he was clearly a tall bloke.

A safety railing only prevents accidental falls if it is higher than the centre of gravity. The population is getting taller, so maybe it is time to raise the limit to account for this.

And as for tripping...

Well most car parks have kerbs, right? Even if not a full pavement kerb, those little ones to stop the wheels getting too close to the walls So it's possible he tripped on a kerb or other obstacle *before* hitting the rail? The article doesn't go into detail.

And, to be fair, it shouldn't HAVE to go into detail. What sort of person reads a news story about an accident and starts publically slagging off the person without full possession of the facts?

Not necessarily

There is a clip on YouTube of a women falling straight into a shopping centre's fountain because she was too busy texting to look where she was going.

I guess the moral is don't walk and text, or if you do, know the route you're walking. And if at all possible try to avoid walking & texting at the top of car parks, high rise buildings, ravines, crevasses, rope bridges or anywhere else where your attention should be concentrating on not plunging to your death.

@DrXym

The fountain lady didn't die though. I'd liken it to the death penalty debate: should paying far too much attention to your phone result in ridicule or death as a penalty?

He should not have been so taken up in his texting that he didn't see the fall -- but human eyes aren't any good at distance vision outside the area they are focused on, and I don't think it is too much to expect a publicly-accesible building to have a barrier on the roof capable of stopping someone walking off.

I know she didn't die

I'm just pointing out people sometimes don't look where they're going when they're texting and illustrated it with an example people can find on YouTube. Some people appeared to doubt it was possible is all.

And how high is the border of said fountain?

Knee-high (if you watched the movie you can see it clearly). Knee-high != waist-high. Knee-high means a MUCH larger proportion of the body's mass is above the fulcrum point and yes, then the body will pitch over and into the water of the fountain.

As for the comments that castigate me for questioning the waist-high comment, I'm taller than most (6'4"), and I have yet to go OVER something that's waist-high even if I tried.

Now the kerb stumble would possibly make physical sense, provided the angle is right.

And if you bothered to read, I questioned the quality of the reporting, which was by someone ALIVE, not the sod who went over the edge.

"Assisted selection"

Death by iPod?

iEvolve (but not quite fast enough...)

Yep, sad, but legislation is hardly going to stop this. If some people are too stupid to not be distracted by their shiny phone while doing something potentially hazardous the threat of prosecution is hardly going to improve their survival chances.

the kernel is Darwin after all

App For That?

Perhaps someone should write an app that monitors the rear camera and alerts you to any hazards while you're fondling the slab? Oh wait...that would require allowing downloadable apps to actually multitask....

There is one, at least on the Galaxy S

I've got such an app on my Galaxy S, allows me to see what's coming when I'm texting and walking, but then again, I don't tend to text and walk that often. Came pre-installed on the phone as part of the Samsung suite of applications (although no doubt something similar is available for other Android phones).

Yep.

FFS

That's why

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12380329

That's why.

You cannot expect people to be responsible when you prohibit kids to become responsible by law and punish every parent that tries to instill even the most elementary sense of danger and responsibility in them.

well

using my brother as a comparison (not very scientific, but there you go), if he'd been out for a family meal, he may have had one pint before heading home. ie drinking but not drunk. At family meals, there are grandparents.

It may have been the case with this guy, who knows? Could the lasses he walked to their cars have been female relatives?

But yes, I forget, we should jump in with anger and indignity and call everything into question.

I believe this is what they call

an accident. Regrettable, tragic for those involved, but not indicative of any need to further regulate, control or amend. As long as there are tall buildings, people will accidentally fall off them. It's sad, but it's not possible or sensible to try to legislate against it.

@Darwin posters

Granted, the family trying to push an accident caused (it seems) by inattention or inebriation onto the place where it happened is the kind of idiocy you would expect from grieving relatives, and the reason policy should never be formed on the opinion of the deceased's mother (or in this case, grandmother).

And, granted, falling off something, whilst very easy, is not the most macho way to die - that position is obviously reserved for suffering a heartattack machine-gunning zombies to death while a gaggle of sexually curious schoolgirls suck you dry.

All that said, are you aware that as a result of this incident someone is dead? Not a Neo Nazi, a Tory MP, or some other group everyone despises, like smug Opera users, just some dude like you and me.

OK ...

References?

"All that said, are you aware that as a result of this incident someone is dead? Not a Neo Nazi, a Tory MP, or some other group everyone despises, like smug Opera users, just some dude like you and me."

What makes you draw this conclusion? He might have been a smug neo nazi MP using Opera for all we know. But according to your statement, that makes it ok if he dies stupidly (I'm not sure I quite understoo your morale). And if he isn't, well he might have been involved in the processing of the Foster urine Australians flood our beer market with (which surely is on par with the smug neo nazi MP Opera user).

Every high place should be fitted with low rails for short people, high rails for tall people, and to be safe, middle rails for average people. They shall also be padded. and the floor as well. Either that, or have someone not totally stupid following each stupid person, not sure what's the cheapest option. But something needs to be done, because 1 (one) person died (I don't think the media would have skipped the opportunity of reporting if the same car park needed to have a pile of bodies removed from the bottom on a daily basis).

nah

Machine-gunning zombies to death

You can't kill what's already dead. And zombie experts could tell you that hitting a zombie's body mass is not going to put one down for long. You need controlled bursts of accurate fire not a machine gun. And while dying of a heartattack in face of the onslaught might be macho, it might not seem so much directly afterwards when your buddies are faced with your reanimated corpse. Better to lead them off a cliff or something.

Mandatory Minimum Warning

Because...

Because iOS won't let user Apps multitask. Therefore, you can't download an app that can monitor your camera while you are texting. Only Apple Apps can multitask, so you'll have to wait until Steve stops saying "you're using it wrong." (of course, he'd be right in this instance, for once).

re: accelerometer

Bah!

I predict legislation to mandate built-in radar in cellphones to warn of the proximity to cars, electrical lines, dangerous wildlife, trains (very common texter-culler here in NY) and vast open swaths of air while texting.

Low barriers...

...scare me too. Sure, he should have been looking where he was going, but can you confidently say that 100% of the time you're 100% aware of what's in front of you?

I'm 6'4" (1.93m) tall, and I've often found walls, railings etc protecting significant drops are lower than arse height, i.e. lower than my centre of gravity. I can think of several situations where I could end up falling over them through little fault of my own (jumping back out of the way of a vehicle, jumping out of the way of idiots larking around, being pushed backwards by someone trying to mug me, etc).